Some Very Large IRC Networks Are Growing
IRC will turn 38 next year
IRC is sort of like "vintage", as it's old but is still valuable because it simply works (Andy Farnell wrote something related to that on Sunday). Almost everyone who uses IRC has heard of Libera.Chat. Many also heard of OFTC. Looking at the list of "top" (by number of users online) IRC networks, there are some new and lesser familiar entries in there:
HybridIRC grew a lot this past year:
So did hackint:
Those two networks alone are a "net gain" of over 20,000 users to IRC, so even if Libera.Chat and Undernet lost a little bit there are gains elsewhere and the total number of known networks which are not minuscule is about the same as in 2021. Ours is doing OK and still growing, steadily.
IRC predates the Web and maybe it will outlive the Web. █